Francesca & Hutch, vintage lovers & city dwellers, clearly felt the same for this was the only venue they visited. With sequin gowns, winter blooms, an art-deco cake and traditional pies, this is one stylish wedding.

Notes from the Bride

Francesca:

We decided we wanted a London wedding and both of us are passionate about vintage and historical fashion and style. Old Finsbury was the only venue we saw, and fell in love with it straight away. Ziggy the Events Manager was so helpful and accommodating. We felt instantly at ease. Other key factors for us was that we’d have exclusive use for the day, and the central London location was very handy. And of course the building itself is just beautiful, we couldn’t believe our luck when we found it.

My dress was by Sophia Tolli. When I first started looking I was planning to go for a more 1930’s cut with lace sleeves, however, in reality those dresses didn’t quite do it for me. My Mum actually picked up my dress, I tried it on and the rest is history. I loved the colour, the coffee underlay meant it wasn’t a standard white dress. As we were married in November I teamed it with a feather wrap that made me feel like a snow queen. I just loved it.

I had five Bridesmaids and they wore similar but individual dresses from Adriana Papell. All were floor length and sparkly in navy, gunmetal, black or silver to match the colours of the wedding.

With a strapless dress I decided quite early on that an updo is what I wanted. I actually met my hairdresser at the wedding dress shop where she was on-hand to do trials. We clicked right away and so I booked her for the day. She also helped me pick my hair decoration/comb so it matched the detail on my dress. My sister and I did my make up on the day.

Our style was classic elegance meets vintage and our colours were navy and gold. The venue was so beautiful we didn’t spend lots of time decorating as it just wasn’t necessary.

That Flower Shop were our chosen florists and I pretty much left it up to them as it wasn’t an area I knew lots about! I knew I didn’t want anything that looked to ‘done’ and they did a wonderful job.

One of my Bridesmaids is a professional cake maker and so she was a natural choice for the cake. Her company is BuBakes and created a three tier lovely art deco cake with our ‘wedding logo’ in gold leaf. It had a fruit cake layer, madeira with vanilla frosting and a chocolate and orange bottom layer. It was delicious.

Catering was by Easy Gourmet who are one of the preferred suppliers of the venue. Marie-Laure was amazing and basically acted as wedding coordinator as well as a caterer, making sure everything ran to time and offering helpful suggestions and things we wouldn’t have thought of. As it was November we went for traditional British pies which went down very well with all guests!

I saw Greg’s photographs of a friend’s wedding on Facebook and immediately knew I wanted him to do our wedding. The reportage style was exactly what we wanted as he was able to capture so many lovely moments. We visited the venue with Greg well in advance which was so useful so he could look at how the light was and plan some shots. On the day Greg was fantastic and also brought along an assistant who was a great help. The photos are wonderful and we couldn’t be happier. I look at them now and still can’t believe that was our wedding!

Best Part of the Day…

Oh gosh all of it. I’d say probably the ceremony as it was very emotional and I was just so happy. The gasps when the pies came out and everyone cutting lose to the ceilidh.

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

You aren’t going to go to prison for not having Bridesmaids, a cake, favours etc. Do whatever makes you and your partner happy!

We didn’t have favours as we didn’t see the point and I arrived at my wedding in an Addison Lee as I wasn’t concerned about wedding cars. So just do what makes you happy and don’t waste time, emotional energy and money on things you feel you should have, rather than things you actually want to have.